As I say, in my description to this playlist, titled “life advice”; “I do not believe anybody is capable of giving good life advice to others. But seeing as everybody’s doing it, I might as well myself.”
as I post this, I just uploaded a video titled “on identity crisis”. To which I commented “Conditioning is Becoming, and social conditioning leads to an identity crisis for many people. 30% of humanity is likely to develop some form of anxiety during their lifetime. I consider no human to be qualified to give life advice to others. But many people do. This video gets added to my “life advice” section of my website on. ajarnspencer.com
However, I do not claim it to be good advice. It’s more of a philosophical game of cards you can play solitaire with. ”
anyway, for better or worse here is my life advice channel on YouTube. Take it with a pinch of salt. Or pepper if you prefer.
I have a Grand Disagreement with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, and the Theory of the Arrow of Time, which compels me to post about this ‘Matter’ (being to do with the Material Universe and the Laws of Quantum Physics/Mechanics). There is no net increase in entropy, rather, a constant re-balancing and rearrangement of material forms, within the rules of cause and effect. This topic is also related to Evolutionary Sciences, and the algorithms of Natural Selection. I also disagree with the theory of ‘The Arrow of Time“.
To Begin with i would like to show a video of a clip from a documentary by a Great Modern British Scientist and TV Personality whom i admire and respect, and see as ‘The Next Sir Richard Attenborough”, for the way he has made science interesting to the younger generation again, and his wonderful way of explaining and describing things, as well as the fantastic production editing of his team.
The first false assumption Brian makes about the Law of Entropy, Chaos and Order, is that he is creating ‘Order’ when he builds the sandcastle. he is not creating ‘Order’, rather, is only under the impression that his disturbance of the natural fractal patterns of the dunes, is orderly, and that the fractal dunes, are chaotic. This is as false a view, as the view that the dunes are orderly, and the sandcastle is chaotic. All views are subjective, and hence, not objective (false, for they are contextual in nature).
Castles in the Sand – Palaces of Stardust
The Buddha did not have views, for he said that all views are false, and hence, paradoxically, the only view that the Buddha held to be true, is that all views are false views, except right view, which is the view that there is no self, and all things are impermanent, conditioned in nature, and dis-satisfactory because of that. We have Dualistic minds, and find it hard to open the curtains, lift the veils of Illusion so to speak, and see beyond our own perspective, which is subjective, not objective
Now i continue with this share of a Ted Talk which addresses some of the issues i have with the second law of thermodynamics; “The History of the World in 18 Minutes”
The video is from one of the team who made one of my favorite History Channel documentaries; ‘Big History’ which takes an alternative approach to viewing history and the interconnections between everything.
To quote this video which belongs to the staunch belief in the second law of thermodynamics (Entropy Theory) “David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is “Big History”: an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline. “
“I keep reiterating that focusing on an iceberg dissolving, or a sandcastle disintegrating or a rock eroding, does not show entropy is the direction of things. The iceberg was first constructed, as was the mountain before it eroded, as was the sandcastle. And so, everything lies in a constant state of rearrangement, of construction and deconstruction (constant flux), but both creation and entropy go hand in hand, for no thing can exist without its own opposite! We see a sandcastle dissolve into the fractal-like orderly but never repeating patterns of the sand dunes of the desert, and think disorder is in effect, when in truth, the desert, is merely rearranging the disorderly sandcastle,, which despite human conditioned thought perceiving it as ‘the orderly part’. is in fact the disorderly chaotic part, and the desert is reclaiming it and rearranging it back into its Natural ORDER of things, which is namely dunes, and ripples on the dunes, which move like the ripples on the ocean, and have no permanence or un-changing-ness to them. If entropy were the only direction the material universe travels in, then an iceberg or a planet or an element, or a complex structure such as DNA would never have come into existence.”
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We may see cancer as entropy of our own health, but for the cancer genome, it is in process of construction and adaptation (evolution through rearrangement). So both Entropy and Construction/Creation, are seeming processes (false and Dualistic conditioned views), where in truth, there is only rearrangement, but no construction and deconstruction (creation and entropy).
“Chaos and Order, much like Beauty, Only Exist, in the Eye of the Beholder”.
The first law of thermodynamics tells us that energy is conserved. However, the absence of the process, indicates that conservation of energy is not the whole story. If it were, movies run backwards would look perfectly normal to us! Have you ever observed this process, a broken cup spontaneously reassembling and rising up onto a table? This process could conserve energy and other laws of thermodynamics and enrgy mechanics.
Maybe movies don’t run backwards to us, but who is to say that the way we perceive things, and measure things, is the only way things are going? A person on 520 megahertz CB radio channel 9 won’t hear what some people on channel 7 were talking about, would they? At least not unless they changed frequency of perception.
In Buddhist practice, people try to ‘Attain’ Enlightenment. Academically, there are four stages to Enlightenment, each of those four stages having a path, and a fruit. In the thing we perceive as ‘the path to Enlightenment/Arahantship’ we tend to see the four stages as explained in Buddhist Dhamma Theory, as something to ‘Attain’ when in Truth, there is Nothing to ‘Attain’ or ‘Get’.
It’s not about Getting anything or Attaining anything, rather, more about Shedding things, and Getting Rid of Things. There is Hence Nothing to be Attained, no Stages of Enlightenment to ‘Get’ . There are merely states of existence, trapped in causality, or free from causality.
The below podcast talks about and elaborates on this.
The mere desire to ‘Become’ a Buddha, is in basis, a false view, because part of the path is to escape the process of Becoming, which is what causes our ceaseless rebirths in Samsaric Illusory Existence (Dependent Origination).
One should not wish to ‘Become’ anything at all, for that is ‘Bhava Tanhā’ (desire of becoming/craving for eternal existence).
The opposite mood, is also a defilement – ‘Vibhava Tanhā’ (desire to not become something/craving for non-existence).
Both are Desires, or forms of Craving. Desire is part of the cycle of Dependent Origination, of which Becoming is a part
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